New Videos Released from Albania, Croatia, Finland and Cyprus

Eurovision 2013 – It’s been a busy day on YouTube today for Eurovision fans as four countries released their official videos. Albania’s video sees Adrian Lulgjuraj & Bledar Sejko singing ‘Identitet‘, Croatia have issued the video by Klapa s Mora performing ‘Mižerja‘ and Finland’s Krista Siegfrids goes down the aisle in her video for ‘Marry Me‘. Cyprus have just released theirs too. Watch them all online now:

Albania: The esc version sounds more or less the same to me.I never really liked the song much but it has a distinctive sound.The video is nice at parts.

Croatia:It’s a bit underwhelming.Sure,they are fine vocalists but i don’t really feel like listening to the song again.

Finland: I’ll have to upgrade Finland on my list.,The song is fun but i don’t know how they’ll present it on stage.If it’s over the top and silly,i won’t like it again.The video is the best one of the season,so far.

I have said everything I had to say about the videos and versions on other threads. In a few words :

Croatia : I like it less as time goes by. Nice lyrics though and nice vocal harmonies thus it was a nit upgraded today.
Albania : The video is so – so but has its tasteful moments. The guitar solo and the rough beginning vocally made me upgrade this a bit as well. Remains a noisy messy effort with little music for me. It will stand out this year though.
Finland : I love the video, I think it is the best made video I have seen till now. The finnish entry is pure irony and wittiness imo and I like it quite a lot. I might upgrade it as well soon.

Cyprus : A very beautiful video..Beautiful colours and landscapes and Despoina looks great. The song remains pretty flat though I am afraid..It has its moments but its a weak effort in general despite her quite pleasant voice. Congratulations for the tasteful clip though.

Sorry, but I still don’t like ‘Marry Me’, which sounds rather silly and childish imo. Perhaps I will enjoy it with a totally over the top performance in May but 6/12 is as high as this one might get on my list. At the moment it is still at 4/12.

On Cyprus. Where does this Cypriot obsession with running through forests come from? They are doing it now for the third year in a row. The video clip is nothing special but fits the gentle and straightforward mood of the song. This is one classy ESC entry imo.

Btw, together with Hebrew, Portuguese, Icelandic, Italian, Polish and French Greek is my favorite language for ballads. :)

Do you love hugging trees too? The seem very fond of hugging trees in Cypriot ESC entries. I guess that it is supposed to signify desperation and the expectation that only nature can heal what is wrong.

Btw, one of Germany’s most famous songs from the 60s is called ‘Mein Freund der Baum’ (My friend the tree). Alexandra was our most talented singer-songwriter in the 60s but unfortunately, she died in a car accident at a very young age:

Unfortunately, Alexandra’s death is linked to ESC. She was supposed to participate in the German national final in 1969 but because she was suffering from burn out symptoms at the time, she decided not to participate, get her things in order and then have a long holiday on the island of Sylt. She was obviously totally unable to drive a car in the state she was in. (The police found post-its all over the dashborad after the accident.) Well, she disregarded the right of way near the town of Tellingstedt and the front part of her car was crashed by a lorry. Both she and her mother died. Only her 6 year old son who had slept on the backseat survived the accident.

I actually recognise this song from somewhere (or at least the title). But I don’t think it has been done in Swedish. In fact, both this and “Mein Freund der Baum” are a bit too somber for the people’s taste from that time, I would guess. Stikkan Anderson, who was the most prominent translator of German songs, prefered more lighter stuff like “Zwei kleine Italiener”, “Der Graf von Luxemburg” and “Ich kauf mir lieber einen Tirolerhut”.

Talking about trees, woods and gloomy German Romanticism makes me think of Ludwig II of Bavaria and his journeys by night. A very fascinating man and his castle is of course a real Disney castle. They were more innovative at the Romantic Age…

They were innovative by trying to recreate the past which is a quite intriguing phenomenon despite the fact that it is quite easy to explain. It is a reaction against modernisation, industrialisation, urbanisation, secularisation, profanisation etc.

Alexandra was and still is my mother’s favorite female singer. So I’ve listened to her songs when I was a child (in the 60s/70s). She is one of the best German singers in that genre. Great voice, sad life.

Same here. I fondly remember listening to Alexandra’s song when I was a small boy too. When my parents both turned 70 two years ago, my sister and I presented a short family history based on music related to our parents that was significant to us in some way. We started with Alexandra, then went on to Abba, Fleetwood Mac and so on.

P.S. I bought all the songs we needed from itunes and have got funny suggestions what to buy from them ever since. :)

Very nice and loving idea. Recently I made a gift to my 80 year old mother and bought a 4 CD Alexandra collection. 3 of my favorite songs are “Illusionen” (by Udo Jürgens), “Das Glück kam zu mir wie ein Traum” (German version of “Manha de carnaval”) and “Die Zärtlichkeit” (German version of “La tendresse”). Songs I still can enjoy after all these years.

Just another question. I’m looking for a female singer from the 70s (from Switzerland or Germany I guess). She performed a few times in the “Hitparade” show and was like a copy of Alexandra (voice and style). Too bad I cannot remember her name and don’t find anything on the Internet. Can you remember?

I think the tourist videos are great. It’s just so charming that they prefer to show their own countries instead of trying to tell the story of the song. I’ve already mentioned the Maltese music videos in the 90’s where there was always a plane from Air Malta appearing somewhere.

I really love Cypriot and Albanian songs…Finnish one has grown in me a little more,the song and the video are way too American though:)Croatia is not my cup of tea

As for the videos,all of them are decent but Cypriot one could have been great without blackberry and laptop scenes…They are really meaningless and ruinning the cool athmosphere of the song imo.
there are also great photographic scenes like in 1:35 , 2:29,2:32 … scenes that make an amature photographer say” I wish I had taken that” ;)

The more I listen to studio versions the more I like some. Croatia is nice but a bit too tame for my taste. Cyprus delivers a strong ballad ESC style. Albania I’ve listened to for the first time and I love this kind of a bit old fashioned Rock sound from Eastern Europe. Great. Finland has a fresh Pop Song but not really my cup of tea. Hopefully all of the singers will sound well on stage in May.

‘An me thimase’ is soothing, classy and simply great in my book. The new arrangement is fuller, but the song still sounds like a good red wine would sound if it were able to sing. And just like most reds it’ll grow better with time. The video is just as flowing as the song.

The Finnish bride’s video suits the song. The Finnish song may do very well in May; better tahn most are expecting. No wine-related comparison here… more like a fancy wacky cocktail. LOL

Cyprus has one of the worst songs this year IMO. I just can’t take the ultimate boredom this song provides…
Finland is the WORST! Although some other country chose crap that match hers… I forgot who ATM.
Croatia has one of the best songs, but of course it will not get any love from juries because they seem to dislike anything that resembles another genre or “folky” entries. I wish they’d not have that hand-clap beat though.
Albania is also underrated. It is one of the better songs this year and definitely a step up from last year’s horror entry (yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m probably the only one who hates Rona’s entry here).

Oh yeah, Romania is the country that chose the only other entry to match the awfulness of “Marry me”. Even Serbia is a little better than those two, LOL!

If someone had a hard time around here for daring not to like Albania 12 that would be me actually. Of course Albania 13 is much better. Would be so difficult to get sny worse than last year’s pretentious horror..

The Finish video is poor, parts of the narrative are irrelevant and out of place with the lyrics, they just dont connect, the acting and narrative is poor. But the music I still kind of like, its very catchy and fun.

Albania: I liked the original version more, but it remains one of my favorite songs of this eurovision, it’s the only great rock song this year (Lithuania just ok, Armenia awefull)
Croatia: A very good song, i really want to see them in final. I hope that they won’t make the terrible mistake to translate their son in english
Cyprus: Despoina Olympiou is a great singer, the videoclip is nice, the song isn’t bad but IMO she could have chosen a better one, with “an me thymasai” i think that it will be difficult to qualify in final.
Finland: I just hate it, the worst song of the contest after Romania imo, the videoclip is also hilarious.

Albania: I never like the song and i never will. It just isn’t my cup of tea and as far as i’m concerned does not touch the classiness of Cyprus and the quirkiness of Finland. I hope it doesn’t qualify but i’m sure it will.
Finland: Quirky and cute. I like it a lot and i’m sure it will qualify. Probably will finish in the top 10.
Cyprus: Wow! Ahhhh i am SOO glad i like my homeland’s entry this year. So classy. Despoina is a great performer and no doubt she will deliver a fantastic vocal performance on stage. I think we deserve to qualify more than ever this year but i am afraid Europe will drop us in boiling water…:(
As for Greece well i always liked the entry but my fear still remains that Europe will see it as a joke (the video does NOT help!!) and therefore will not vote. It does actually have a deeper meaning, about the current economic crisis. I saw an interview with Koza Mostra and i was delighted to see that he isn’t as crazy/immature as he can sometimes seem.
So all in all, i am very please with the videos from both Cyprus and Greece, i definitely am a fan of Finland although i think it could well be very overrated as songs like that usually are in Eurovision. Good luck to all and roll on ESC! :D

Finlands video…..The video was made for FREE as Krista did not have any money to make a video and the record company did not provide any money.All the people in the video are her friends.Krista had to pay her backing singers and dancers for the finnish finals herself.She is certainly not rich.For these reasons alone I hope she does well-as most other singers have a lot of money behind them.She also has had a really hard time from finnish speaking finns as she is a swedish speaking finn.Also finnish radio backed the other finnish songs and ignored her.Now they are playing Robin all the time! I know most of you hate this song but I think its alright.
Scandinavian songs-
1.Norway
2.Finland
3.Sweden (I dont like it-sorry!)
4.Denmark (I just dont get this song!)

Thanks Shevek.I think Finland is a certain finalist.I would agree with you-she could do quite well.I would put Norway and Germany in the top 2 or 3.-even though I dont like Germanys song.Hollands song made me fall asleep.I know a lot of people like it.I am willing to bet one drink with ANYONE on here that Finland makes the final :)

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